A new venture by the former owner of controversial company Celebration Box is being questioned over whether its social media presence is genuine.
Iyia Liu, who featured on TVNZ's Boss Babes programme, sold Celebration Box earlier this year and has since started a new venture - Tidal Hair Wavers - through her company Explosive Social.
The hair styling tools are set to sell on the company's website for NZ$89.
Marketing of the tools appears to be following a similar line as previous ventures by Ms Liu - they are being promoted almost exclusively through Instagram with the help of numerous high-profile influencers.
However, commenters on the company's Instagram account have questioned how they have gained so many followers - the company's first post was on December 6, but the account somehow has about 420,000 followers already.
Their official Facebook page has just 12 likes.
"How did you get that many followers in such a short period of time? (Super curious)," one commenter wrote on a post.
Ninjalitics, an Instagram analytics tool, shows Tidal Hair's Instagram account has been active for some time, and has been growing at a rate of several thousand followers per week throughout 2019.
Tidal Hair's website was first registered on November 18, and the analytics tool suggests the company's Instagram account has experienced a drop in followers since that date.
1 NEWS approached Tidal Hair to provide an explanation of the unusual account growth, asking whether they had bought the account, and whether buying an account with lots of followers was misleading to consumers.
An unnamed company spokesperson said only that "it is perfectly normal conduct to buy or sell a business, acquire a business, or merge a business".
Instagram's Terms of Use state "you can't attempt to buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username) or solicit, collect, or use login credentials or badges of other users".
1 NEWS again asked the company to clarify their statement and provide more information about the account, but no response was received.
Social media and digital communication expert Richard Irvine said Tidal Hair's account growth "looks suspicious" and that having 400,000 followers with few posts "is a big red flag".
"A new account posting some fairly rudimentary content about a ... hair care accessory attracting those numbers has to have something fishy going on."
Mr Irvine said brands are increasingly looking at follower counts as a metric for reputation.
"For some, follower count equals popularity - people see a big number and simply don't understand or care if it's real or not.
"The social media giants have bigger problems to solve, but you’d think shutting down fake marketing accounts would be fairly straightforward and a step toward making their products more trustworthy."
1 NEWS approached a representative for Facebook and Instagram, but they declined to provide a comment on the account.
A HISTORY OF CONTROVERSY
Tidal Hair Wavers is another venture by businesswoman Iyia Liu, who also founded dessert package company Celebration Box before selling it this year.
That company was the subject of numerous consumer complaints in 2018 , culminating in a Commerce Commission investigation which this year found they may have breached the Fair Trading Act in multiple instances .
Customers complained that their orders arrived much later than expected, refunds were withheld, product quality was low and that negative feedback had been deleted from the company's social media pages.
Ms Liu, along with manager Briar Howard, in that case attributed the failings to unprecedented and unexpected growth, which meant they were unable to keep up with demand to a reasonable standard.
News tip or more information? Email Luke Appleby or Follow @lukeappleby
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